Literacy Lesson Post-Reflection

After my literacy lesson I found that I had a lot to reflect on. This is because my lesson did not go as I had planned. While I found this upsetting at first, now I can see how much I can learn from this experience. Since my lesson was during literacy centers it lasted twenty minutes and I gave it twice in a row. The first group of students that I taught was a group of five ‘middle level’ readers. The lesson went smoothly and the students seemed to really enjoy the activity. After this first lesson, I taught to a group of six ‘high level’ readers. Also, three of the students in this group were from the next-door classroom. The lesson started off shaky because I had a hard time gaining the attention of the students. They were definitely distracted by the items that I had in front of me and by each other. However, once I started the lesson, I found that they also enjoyed the lesson. I could tell that the students were putting effort into reading with appropriate expression and tempo. The student especially seemed to grasp the concept of the lesson when I modeled reading without, and then with, appropriate expression and tempo.

One strength of my lesson was that I was prepared for differentiation for groups. I wrote three different versions of the script and my cooperating teacher and I agreed that this differentiation helped to make the learning objectives possible for students of all skill levels. Another strength of my lesson, as I mentioned above, was my modeling. I think that this really connected to the students because it was very obvious that, initially, I was not reading the ‘right way’ to them. I also thought that a strength of my lesson was using the small white board to go over how to read with expression based on different punctuation marks. I was able to help students with their thinking at this point and have them practice the appropriate expression as a group. Lastly, I thought I did a good job at guiding all of the students during the lesson. I bounced from group to group in order to get an idea of how they were doing and to provide support when needed.

While I felt the components of my lesson went well, there were certainly challenges to my lesson. I initially struggled with gaining the attention of the students. Some of the students had never met me before and I wonder if this contributed to some defiance as well. I also noticed that the two students in particular were very distracted by the materials that I had out on the desk. If I were to give this lesson again, the first change I would make is to have these materials hidden at the beginning of the lesson. I think that this could have helped with the behavior of the students. Another change I would make to help with behavior management is that I would switch up some of the pairings within the group. Now that I know the students from the other classroom a little better I would choose to pair students together in ways that I feel would support learning. I also noticed that one student in particular from my class had a hard time focusing. This is a behavior that I have seen often from him throughout my time in this classroom. I think that a simple accommodation for him could have been to provide him with a fidget to hold during the lesson.

If I gave this lesson in a class of mine in the future I would also make sure to monitor the noise level in the room. It was getting very loud during my lesson and this noise definitely contributed to the energy and distraction within my group. In my future classroom I would have the whole class freeze and remind them that we need to talk in a whisper voice when we are in centers. Lastly, I think that I would add in having an anchor chart in my lesson for the students. This could have helped them to remember what we were learning instead of me just expecting them to remember from their heads.

Overall, this lesson taught me so much because it did not go perfectly. It reminded me that I need to be intentionally about every aspect of a lesson while I plan it. This lesson also showed me how important it is for me to know my students and to plan accommodations for them when necessary.

End of the Semester...

When I look back at my initial blog this semester is it exciting to see how much I have grown. I honestly feel like I have improved as a teacher more this this semester than in any previous semester. The first goal that I made at the beginning of the semester was to “improve on building professional relationships in my clinical setting”. I certainly feel like I have gotten better at this. Something that I made sure to do this semester was be more conversational and open with my cooperating teacher and other faculty in the school. Another goal I made was to become more comfortable with teaching science and social studies. After teaching my social studies and science lessons I feel more knowledgeable in these areas. I know I need a lot more practice with teaching but my lessons went well and I feel like I learned a lot about how to give lessons in these subjects.

I also wanted to work on integrating technology into my lessons. This is something that I have done a little this semester but I would consider it an on-going goal. I have used the Smart Board in my classroom but I want to continue to broaden my horizons to other types of technology (ie. iPads, interactive games, websites, virtual field trips, etc.). My last goal was that I wanted to work on my classroom management skills. This is something that I have made a very conscious effort to do. I feel like I have learned a lot this semester through both my classes and my clinical teacher about how to work on classroom management. I know that this goal will be one that I will keep working on every year when I am a teacher. Developing effective classroom management takes a lot of careful consideration and experimentation.

Next semester in student teaching I know I will continue to work on these goals and add more. One of the main goals that I really want to pay attention to during student teaching is to learn as much as I possibly can from the teachers I get to work with. I know that I have so much to learn from professionals that have been in this field and have years of experience. Another goal I want to work on when I am in student teaching is developing connections with the students. This is something that I found a little tricky in our clinical settings because we only get to see the kids once a week. However, I know from my experience working at a Montessori school during the summer that forming these relationships with individuals can be one of the most rewarding parts of being a teacher. My ultimate goal is to one day be a teacher that students feel comfortable and connected with. Lastly, I want to work on being enthusiastic and energetic when I am in at school. I know that the mood of a teacher completely shapes the tone of the classroom. I know I will have work to do myself with getting on a better sleeping schedule so that I can be rested and ready to teach everyday.

When I look back at my clinical experience this semester I realize I have learned a lot. I was lucky enough to have a clinical teacher who was very open and took every opportunity to teach me more about being a teacher. She was full of advice and she has taught me about working with students, groups, and coworkers. Now that I look back at my goals I can see how much I have learned. This personal growth makes me excited for how much I am going to learn in student teaching! I am looking forward to being in one classroom everyday of the week for an extended amount of time.

https://k12teacherstaffdevelopment.com/tlb/can-the-teachers-mood-impact-student-performance/

Here is a link to an article I read about how the mood of the teacher can impact students. This is one of my goals that I want to make sure to always be contentious of. 

Literacy Lesson Pre-Reflection

In order to make decisions regarding my clinical literacy lesson I referred back to the assessments I administered on a select few students in my class. I chose three students to test on the areas of alphabet knowledge, sight words, and fluency. Of these three areas, the students had the most difficulty with fluency. The test that I administered to test fluency was a fluency rubric that tested the areas of expression and volume, phrasing, smoothness, and pace. One at a time, I pulled each student aside and had him or her select a book that was at their reading level to read to me. Then, I had them read the book aloud to me as I scored them using the fluency rubric. The rubric had a possible sixteen points and at the bottom of the sheet it said, “scores below 10 indicate that the student needs additional instruction”. The three students that I tested all fell between the scores of six and eight, which told me that they all needed extra supports in the area of fluency. The strengths of these students in regards to the areas of fluency was phrasing so I decided not to focus on this area for the lesson. The categories of fluency that they all struggled the most with were expression/volume and pace. While I know that some of this is a result of these students still being in the beginning stages of reading, I feel like there are definitely ways to help them develop these skills.

When I shared the results of my assessments with my teacher, she agreed that doing a lesson on fluency would be most beneficial for the students. She also said that this is aspect of literacy that she feels all of the students in her class could improve in. I have noticed that even the students in the strongest reading groups do not read with expression and appropriate pace. These are skills that need to be explicitly taught in order for students to understand their importance. Therefore, I decided to make my literacy lesson a small group activity that teaches students about using appropriate expression and pace while reading. My teacher asked me to do my lesson during the literacy centers. Centers last for twenty minutes total and are divided into two, twenty-minute rotations every day. The centers contain five to six students each. This information also shaped the idea for my lesson because I knew it had to be completed in twenty minutes, have a quick clean up time, and not be too loud/distracting for the rest of the class.

Based on all of this information, I decided to do a “Reader’s Theatre” style lesson. I wanted to make sure to both explicitly teach the students and give them the opportunity to practice what they learn. I plan on modeling reading a passage of a book in a very monotone way and with a quick pace in order to get students thinking about how I could improve my reading. They will help me come up with ways that I can read in a more fluent way. After I explicitly teach them about expression and pace, students will have the opportunity to read a story in “Reader’s Theatre” style with a partner. If there are an odd number of students I will be a partner with a student. In order to make sure this lesson is developmentally appropriate, I will first have students practice reading the lines without worrying about expression or pace. Then, they will add in these elements. I have also made sure to differentiate for the different levels of the reading groups by writing stories that vary in difficulty.

The content presented in this lesson is important for kindergarten-aged students to learn because reading with expression and pace are crucial skills to obtain in order to become a fluent reader. These are skills that may seem obvious to adults but need to be taught explicitly to children. My literacy lesson will involve students in thinking critically about ways to be a good reader and have them practice using these skills. I also know that these students have learned about how different types of punctuation can impact how a sentence is read (exclamation mark, period, and question mark). In my lesson I will review these different types of punctuation and have them practice reading the same sentence three times with a different punctuation mark ending it each time. This will help students to think about using these punctuation marks as clues about how they should be reading a sentence. Then, when they are reading together as partners, I will also remind them to pay attention to these punctuation marks.

I chose to write my own stories for the students to read because I knew that my teacher wanted the lesson to work on “short u” sounds. Therefore, I made sure to include these types of words in the stories. I also chose to write my own stories because I knew that I would need stories that varied in difficulty for the different levels of the reading groups. For my lesson, I also chose to use the materials of a small white board, character cards, and an expression die. The white board will allow me to write sentences and practice punctuation concepts with the students. The character cards are small pieces of paper that I will hand out to the students to help them remember which character they are for the reading. I know that this is something that the students may forget quickly so having the visual in front of them will help. Lastly, the expression die is a tool that students will use at the end of the lesson to randomly select a type of expression for them to read the story in. This is a fun way to get students thinking about expression and practicing applying it. Overall, all of these materials will help to support the students in reaching the objectives of the lesson.

I will know that students have met the objectives of this lesson based on my observations and a checklist that I will fill out during the activity. I will be looking to see if students demonstrate appropriate expression for punctuation marks, expression during the die activity, and if they read with appropriate pace. I will also be sure to add comments to my checklist so that I will be able to remember specific aspects of how each child was doing when I look back at it. Additionally, I will be listening to the partners while they read in order to scaffold them as I see fit.

Science In My Clinicals

In my clinical placement I have seen very little science instruction take place. The kindergarten teachers definitely do not see science as an area of importance for their students. As I have mentioned in previous posts, my teacher spends the majority of the school day teaching about literacy and math. Everyday, there are literacy and math centers and lots of time devoted to learning new skills in these subjects. It makes me sad that other subjects, such as social studies and science, are ignored.

When I brought up to my teacher earlier in the semester that I needed to give a science lesson to the class, she seemed enthusiastic about it. She mentioned that the kids do not get to do science very often so they would be excited to do anything hands-on. The topic that I was given was rocks, soil, and water. Even though this was not the most exciting topic the kids loved it! It was clear that they enjoyed thinking about how the world around them works. I know that when I was a child, science was one of my favorite subjects. This is because it teaches you about real life facts and provides answers to questions that you may wonder about on a day-to-day basis.  I was happy to see how engaged the students were in my lesson, but this also made me sad because they do not get to experience this excitement on a regular basis.

Other then my lesson, I have only seen science taught one other time this semester. My clinical teacher read a book to the students on planets and then had them do an activity together on the rug. She had a small yellow ball that she was pretending was the sun and the students were the Earth. The goal of the activity was to have students face the way the Earth would face at different times during the day. For example she held up the “sun” and said, “Which way would the Earth be facing if it was nighttime?” In this example all of the students turned to have their backs to the “sun”. Even this small activity seemed to be so interesting to the students. They all had tons of questions about the planets and they were visibly sad when the lesson was over.

What I have seen in my clinicals this semester differs greatly from what I have learned about effective teaching in my courses at ISU. Science is a topic that teaches important skills like critical thinking and problem solving and it should not be ignored. When I am a teacher I know I will make sure to include science in my classroom. I feel like by the end of this semester I will have learned a lot about how to come up with fun/hands-on science activities. I am also looking forward to this summer when I will be working again at the Montessori school near my home. Science is one of the topics that we focus on most with the children and I can’t wait to apply what I have learned this school year with my Montessori kids.



Here are some pictures of Montessori science activities that I have seen my summer students do. Montessori has a large focus exploration and hands-on materials. I am excited to get back to teaching science this summer!

Post- Lesson Reflection

After implementing my social studies lesson in my clinical classroom I have a lot of ideas about how it went and how it could have been improved. Overall, I felt like the lesson went well and the students were engaged. I was able to keep the students interested throughout the lesson by having frequent and varying checks for understanding. In the beginning of the lesson, I took the time to teach the students sign language for the words “want” and “need”. I feel like this ended up being a very successful part of my lesson. It provided me with another way to check for student understanding and it also allowed the students to express their knowledge through movement.
     
Another way I was able to keep the children engaged during my lesson was by having them recall on their previous life experiences regarding wants and needs. I could tell that allowing the children to talk about these experiences helped them to feel connected and interested to this topic. Also, when I had the students come up to the white board and match pictures under the category “want” or “need” I could see that the students were engaged and excited to participate. This enthusiasm carried through until the end of the lesson where the students drew/wrote about one thing they wanted and one thing they needed.
     
While students were participating in this last activity, I walked around with a checklist to assess student understanding. Since I was also supporting students and answering questions, I was not able to fill out the entire checklist during this time in the lesson. I did however finish the checklist after the lesson when I got all of the students’ worksheets back. I was very pleased to see that all but one student correctly identified a want and a need in their life. However, this one student did make me consider how I could have made sure to provide every student with support during this lesson. Looking back I should have made an extra effort to check on this particular student’s work. She is a child who is regularly pulled out of class for extra supports and often has difficulty grasping foreign concepts. In retrospect, I should have made sure to check in on students that I suspected would need more assistance early on in the activity in order to make sure they were on the right path.
     
My data from this assessment allowed me to know that my students understood what the difference between a want and a need is. They seemed to be confident in being able to identify wants and needs, and it was fun to see students come up with unique examples. If I were to give this lesson again, I would certainly stick with using a checklist but I would make sure to put a symbol, such as a star, next to the students that I would want to check in with first. Every week as I get to know these students better I find myself thinking of ways that this knowledge can help to shape my lessons and my assessments. I am learning which students typically need more assistance and which students catch on to new ideas more quickly.
     
Overall, looking back at my implementation of this lesson I am able to think of so many ways to improve my next lesson. First, I want to make sure to keep the aspects of this lesson that went well. For example, I felt like I was well prepared, had good checks for understanding, interacted well with the students, and was able to keep student attention. Now that I know what parts of my lesson were successful I will be sure to carry these ideas over into my next lesson.
       
I am also able to realize how I can improve my next lesson based off of this experience. The first change I am going to make is to think more carefully about timing. I found this to be a challenge and I plan on I wearing a watch for my next lesson to help me stick to my schedule. When the timing was thrown off in this lesson, I found that I did not have enough time to conclude the activity the way I had planned. I know how crucial the end of a lesson is and I plan on making sure to have time for this section in my next lesson.
     
I also am going to have a more carefully thought through plan for one particular student in my class. I had made some accommodations for him during this lesson, but for my next one I want to make sure that I have better options. I am going to make sure to have a clear plan for ways to support him during the next lesson and what I will do if I have behavioral issue with him during the lesson.
     
Lastly, I want to make sure to have more opportunities for student discussion and use of the academic language. While I did have the students discuss the topic of wants and needs, I did not have them practice explicitly using this language. For my next lesson I am going to make sure to have students use the academic language in a way that will support their learning of the overall content. I know that by making all of these changes I will be able to provide my students with a lesson that supports all leaners and teaches them as effectively as possible.

Social Studies in Clinicals

So far this semester I have not seen any social studies in my kindergarten clinical classroom. In fact, when I asked my clinical teacher about social studies she said, “we don’t really do social studies”. I think this is a sad thing to hear! Through my ISU class TCH 277 I have learned how much fun teaching social studies can be. I went into this class with a negative view on social studies because of my own experiences as a student. What I remember from social studies as a kid was that we would mostly read out of a textbook and watch videos. After learning about ways to make social studies fun this semester I feel like it could actually be one of the most fun subjects to teach.

Even though I have not seen social studies in my clinical setting this semester I have seen it in a past semester. Last semester, in my third grade classroom, I saw my teacher read books to the students about moments or people in history. Also the students when the students were learning about different environments (desert, rainforest, etc.) they learned about countries where these environments are found. Other than these two examples I have not seen social studies in my clinical experiences. These examples did not really go along with what I have learned about at ISU because the students were mostly being taught through direct instruction and not their own experiences. I think that it is unfortunate that social studies is so often pushed to the side for younger classrooms and not addressed until older grades. Social studies introduces important concepts that can and should be introduced to young children.

After seeing this lack of social studies instruction in my clinical settings I will be sure to include social studies in my future class. I feel like I already have so many ideas about ways I can incorporate social studies into the school day. First, I would make sure that my social studies lessons integrate other subjects as well. This often happens naturally, but I want to intentionally plan ways I can teach other subjects within social studies. For example, if I was teaching a unit on cultures of the world I could have students explore write, draw, create art, dance, make a video, or sing to show what they learned about another culture. This could cross into the subject areas of music, art, literacy, and technology.

Another thing I will make sure to do in my social studies lessons is provide opportunities for students to do activities that are hands-on and applicable to their lives. I think that physically doing something makes learning a concept not only easier but also more fun! I also feel like relating social studies lessons to students personally can make concepts more simple to grasp and more exciting.
After spending these last few weeks at my clinicals I find myself wondering what is happening on the days of the week that I am not at clinicals! This week, I went into clinicals on Monday and it was interesting to see how parts of the day were structured differently then they are on Wednesdays. I want to make sure to ask my teacher more about how the school week has been so far that week when I come into clinicals on Wednesdays. I find that having some background information on how much the kids are familiar with a topic can help to direct my instruction.

http://www.naeyc.org/files/yc/file/200509/SocialStudiesBooksBTJ905.pdf
Check out this awesome list of children's books to use as a part of social studies lessons for young students! I have noticed a lack of books that address issues covered in social studies in my clinical classroom this semester.

P.S. I highly suggest "Sky Dancers" by Connie Ann Kirk. I read this book with a third grade student last semester and it had cool information and beautiful pictures!

Workjobs!

For one of my classes this semester we are required to make something called "workjobs". A workjob is an activity that a child could do independently. Below are my four workjobs that I have created!

This is a Civics and Government workjob titled "When I am Upset...". This workjob is appropriate for kindergarten-aged students. Students must arrange the pictures either under the categories "good choices" or "bad choices". The pictures are of things that a student can do when they are feeling upset. Some of the options in the "good choices" category are things like going to the peace table or taking a butterfly breath. 

This is a Economics workjob I created titled "Money Matching". It is appropriate for 1st grade students. The students match the pictures and the values of money the name of the coin or bill. Afterwards students can check their answers on the back of the file-folder.

This is a geography workjob I made for second graders titled "Name Our Neighbors". I cut the states neighboring Illinois out of different colors of felt and then created labels for the states. Students are to place Illinois in the center of a large piece of white felt and then put the bordering states in the correct spots. To finish, students label the states. This workjob aligns with Illinois standard IL 17.A.1a 

This is a History workjob I created titled "Inventors and Inventions". This workjob is appropriate for third grade students. The students must match the name of the inventor with the inventions on the timeline. All of the materials are attached to the file-folder.

My First Science Lesson!

Last Wednesday, I gave my first official lesson to my clinical class of kindergarteners. I have to admit, I was nervous! Coming off of working with third graders last semester, I have been finding adjusting to kindergarten-aged students to be a big change. Even more nerve-racking was that my teacher asked me to do my lesson on rocks, soil, and water – rather dull subjects in my opinion. Regardless of my apprehension my lesson ending up going well and the students were engaged and interested the entire time.

After looking at the feedback sheet my clinical teacher filled out and thinking about our conversation we had after my lesson, I am able to pinpoint what I did well and what I could improve. My strongest part of my lesson was definitely the beginning. I had the students sit on the big rug and we made a web of everything they knew about rocks. I was shocked! They knew much more than I expected. This part of my lesson was strong because the kids were engaged and I made sure to remind them to “raise their hands” if they had an idea so everyone could hear them. Next, I had three different types of soil for the students to look at. This part went very well too and I could tell that the students were using their prior knowledge to thinking critically about the different types of soil. I then asked the students to “turn and talk” to their neighbor about a difference between the soils. After a minute I brought the students back together and shared some of what I heard the students talking about. My clinical teacher mentioned that this was a strong part of my lesson because I shared the children’s knowledge instead of just ignoring what they had spoken to their partners about. My teacher also mentioned that I did a good job with explaining directions and modeling what I expected of the students before I sent them back to their tables to work individually. After I had explained the directions I sent the students back to their seats and handed them each a rock and a sheet of paper to draw their rock and write some descriptive words about their rock. My last strength of my lesson was that I gave my students choices on how they could sort their rocks. The end of my lesson was that the students were divided into groups of two and each group had to come up with a way to sort the rocks I had given them. The students were eager to do this and they had tons of ideas on ways they could sort their rocks.

Although my lesson went well overall, there are certainly some improvements that I would make if I were doing this lesson again. One suggestion that my clinical teacher made was that I should be less tolerant with side conversations during the lesson. She said that a “gentle touch on the shoulder or back or saying the child’s name” can help to bring back focus. I think that this would be a good thing to do not only for this lesson but for all lessons that I give. Another suggestion that she made was to not be afraid to take the rocks away from students who were playing around with them. The students behaved well up until it was time to sort the rocks. As soon as they were in a group setting they got silly and started spinning and tapping the rocks on the table. This was something that I was not expecting! If I gave this lesson again, I would mention some rules about handling the rocks before I passed them out to students and I would warn them that if they do not follow the rules their rocks will be taken away. When the students got loud with the rocks I definitely found it more difficult to keep control of the class. Another thing I would change about this lesson is that I would make sure that the students that I grouped together for the sorting section of the lesson would be able to work well together. Because I have only been at my clinical setting for three weeks I do not know all of the dynamics between children in this classroom. Next time, I would be sure not to group certain students together who I know have a hard time working together or feed off of each other’s silliness. With these improvements, I think that this lesson would run more smoothly and the students would be able to take more from it.

Overall, for a lesson on rocks, soil, and water I thought the students were very engaged! I have learned, through talking with my clinical teacher, that the students rarely get to do science lessons. She said that the way they teach ideas about science to the students is usually just through books. I think this was some of the reason the students were so excited about my lesson. This lesson gave them an opportunity to think critically and to physically interact with objects. The students remained motivated throughout the lesson and I think that giving them the choice on how they wanted to sort their rocks kept the children engaged as well.

Another aspect of my lesson that I have reflected on is the organization of my lesson. Originally, I planned to look at the different types of soil after the students had done all of the activities with the rocks. When I initially emailed my lesson to my clinical teacher, she suggested that I move that part of the lesson to the beginning so that the students could practice describing an object with my guidance. Looking back I am so glad I made that change! I felt like students were prepared to work independently when the time came because my lesson flowed well. I made sure to show them how to describe something, then we practiced together, then I showed them my example, and then they were asked to do it independently. I think the organization of this lesson set the students up for success. They all seemed to understand what was expected of them and I saw a lot of good work throughout the lesson that let me know that students understood what they were learning. Overall, I thought the lesson went well and I am excited to apply my knowledge from giving this lesson to the next lesson I present to this class.

Literacy In My Clinical Classroom

This week marks my third time going to my clinical classroom this semester. My classroom is made up of 21 kindergarteners and one teacher. Looking back at what I have seen so far, I am noticing that most of the time in the classroom is spent on literacy instruction and assessment. The first time I saw literacy instruction take place was during a morning meeting where the teacher did some Hagerty assessments with the children. She had made flashcards of sight words that she had the class answer as a whole.

Another time where I have seen literacy in this classroom is before lunch when the teacher or I read a book aloud to the kids. The book always ties in with something that the kids are learning about that day. I feel like my teacher does a really good job with asking the kids questions about the text and about how the characters may feel. The way that she interacts with the children during the read aloud certainly goes along with what I learned in one of my classes, Literacy 273, last semester. Our professor taught us how important it is to engage the kids during read alouds and to ask them questions throughout it to get them thinking about the characters, storyline, and choices that the author made. The kids really love this time of the day and they are always eager to answer questions about the story.

After lunch, my teacher has the children lie down on towels for a rest and the kids get to listen to a couple short books on tape. She allows a different student to pick the books everyday. I think that this is great because it gets the kids excited that they will get to choose a story that they really like. It also helps to keep the kids calm and quiet during this rest time. There is also a time of the day where my teacher does literacy centers. There is a center where the kids listen to a book on tape, a center where they read quietly, a center where they work in a small group with the teacher, and a center where a parent helper does an activity with the students. This worked so well! The kids rotate two times and then go to the centers they miss the next day. Doing centers like this definitely goes along with what I have learned in classes at ISU because the kids do not work on any one thing for too long and also they get to work on literacy in a variety of ways.

The only times I have seen my teacher do actual assessments of the students literacy is during one of these small group lessons that she gave. She had copies of a short book made for each child. The children were learning about the letter “J” so the book was called “See Jack Jump”. The kids had to write in the words “Jack” and “jump” at certain parts of the book, they had to circle the sight word “with” and they had to add in periods in the appropriate places. After they had all finished this, she had the kids read the book as a group, silently, and then to two partners. This assessment goes along perfectly with what I have learned throughout my classes because she teaches the lesson and then allows the students to practice independently and with others.

After these first few times at my clinical setting I am eager to see how consistent my teacher is with all of these literacy activities and assessments. I feel like there is so much focus on literacy and math that it makes me wonder if she teaches science or social studies lessons very often. I am hoping to see more of these other subjects and more hands-on activities in the future!

Something that I would add in if this was my classroom would be some sort of visual chart/display, like the one above, that shows what centers each student should be at each day. This would help to eliminate any confusion about where students should be and it would make the kids more responsible for knowing what they should be doing.

About Me and Semester Goals

Hello,

My name is Eva Ticknor and I am a senior Early Childhood Education major at Illinois State University. I grew up in Crystal Lake Illinois and decided to attend ISU because I knew it had a well-respected College of Education. Initially, I thought that I wanted to teach preschool or kindergarten-aged children. But throughout my clinical and personal experiences, I have come to realize that I enjoy working with second and third graders. This is my last semester at ISU before student teaching and I am looking forward to learning all that I can before I leave! This blog will follow my thoughts about this semester as I participate in my clinical setting of a kindergarten classroom.

As I am in my clinical setting this semester there are four goals I have set for myself to achieve by the end of the semester. My first goal is to improve on building professional relationships in my clinical setting. Last semester, I felt as though my cooperating clinical teacher and I did not have much of a connection. I want to get to know my cooperating teacher better this semester so that I can feel more comfortable talking with her about her students, her coworkers, and teaching in general. I know how important it is to have an open path of communication with coworkers and I hope to begin practicing forming relationships like this by working on my relationship with my cooperating teacher. 

Another goal that I have for this semester is to become more comfortable with teaching science and social studies to children.  I feel like I have had plenty of opportunities to teach reading and writing lessons but I have not had much experience with these other subjects. I know that through the classes I am taking this semester I will learn strategies for teaching science and social studies in fun and effective ways. 

The third goal I have made for myself is that I want to integrate relevant technology into my lessons. Last semester I worked on becoming more comfortable with using Smart boards and now I want to continue to expand my knowledge. There are so many websites and resources for teachers to incorporate into their lessons in order to make them more engaging, visually stimulating, and interactive for students.  I want to explore some of these resources this semester and make sure that my lessons are fun and involve relevant technology in an effective way. 

My last goal for this semester is to work on my classroom management skills. Classroom management is something that I find to be tricky and somewhat uncomfortable at times. I work in a school over the summer, and I find that I have an easier time with classroom management when I personally know the students. I think that this is some of the reason why I find it difficult in a clinical setting. Some things that I plan on doing in order to improve my classroom management skills are that I am going to make sure to tell student my expectations, have an attention grabber to use throughout my lessons, and make my activities engaging.

Here is a quote that I love and reminds me how important it is to make learning 

fun and interactive for kids!